Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: The lights are going off all over Europe, where a ban takes effect Thursday on the manufacturing and importing of 60-watt incandescent clear light bulbs.

It’s part of one of the great nanny government campaigns of the past decade, with similar programs set for parts of Canada and the U.S. Everyone is supposed to use fluorescent bulbs instead, whether or not they can stand the harsh white glow of the new bulbs. It’s better for the environment, we’re told, so too bad.

In the United States, plans to phase out the energy-inefficient lights have been met with jeremiads claiming the move is an attack on freedom, the U.S. Constitution, and probably motherhood as well. In Europe, where people are evidently more accustomed to being told what to do, the change has provoked a little gentle griping. In Britain, people are more upset that the new fluorescents make everyone look deader than usual. There are also concerns they may set off epileptic attacks in a few poor souls.

The Financial Times notes that while people may comply with the ban, they aren’t exactly thrilled. Retailers are allowed to sell off their supplies of the old bulbs, and continued demand is expected to push up prices as people stockpile them:

James Shortridge, managing director of the UK’s leading specialist lighting chain Ryness, suggested that stock levels could soon be depleted and prices climb for remaining inventory if the pattern set by the EU previous ban on the 100W bulb two years ago were repeated.

Sales levels at his stores have picked up in recent weeks as some consumers have opted to buy dozens of the pearl incandescent lamps, doomed to manufacturing extinction, to ensure they have sufficient supplies for months or years to come.

Not surprisingly, older people are most resistant to trading in their bulbs for the new-fangled model. Who won the war, anyway? In the U.S., where the bulbs have only months left to live, The Washington Times typifies the take-no-prisoners stance in The Washington Times.

Liberals want to take away your light bulbs, pickup trucks and family sedans, but they aren’t honest enough to admit it. On the House floor … Democrats insisted regulations prohibiting the sale of cheap sources of illumination beginning in January are about increasing consumer choice. Likewise, the Obama administration’s forthcoming 56-mile-per-gallon fuel-efficiency mandate for automakers is supposedly a boon for consumers.

Unfortunately, efforts to blame the U.S. ban on conniving Democrats run into trouble when it’s recalled that the energy savings bill was signed into law by George W. Bush. Not that fellow Republicans didn’t try to stop him, notes R.P. Siegel at Triple Pundit:

In a move truly reflective of how bizarre American political life has become, there really was a bill sponsored by House Republicans, considered by Congress …, that would have essentially rolled back the clock on energy-saving technology, in the name of “personal freedom”. And it almost passed.
The bill, introduced by Joe Barton (R-TX), was intended to overturn a 2007 law (passed under the Bush administration) that would begin phasing out production of energy-guzzling incandescent light bulbs in 2012. This, in spite of the fact that, according to a poll taken earlier this year, most Americans are fine with the new bulbs that save 75% of the energy used by the Edison-era incandescents.

Fluorescent lights also carry their own environmental risks because they contain small amounts of mercury and other toxic materials. The Environmental Protection Agency website contains three pages of consumer directions about what to do if you break a CFL bulb in your home: “Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more. Shut off the central heating and air conditioning system. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with a metal lid.’’

The paper doesn’t say what you are supposed to do next, but dumping the mess in the garbage is not an option: it’s hazardous waste.

Encased in its own glass world, a miniature laboratory keeps a tiny thread of tungsten burning brightly. There is even a touch of romance in its soft flare, as it casts a painterly glow over the room and the faces of its occupants …
Cultural historian Christopher Cook is not a fan of the new light bulbs. He says light creates an atmosphere in a room and the new bulbs give off a “different light”.
“We are seeing a fundamental change in the way interiors are illuminated,” he says.
“The light that the old bulbs cast through a lampshade is different. It’s a softer, more natural light. The light is diffused through the shade.”
Cook is not alone in preferring conventional light bulbs – the vast majority of the 600 million light bulbs in UK homes are tungsten filaments and people are still buying them.